28 October 2011

After publishing Murder At The Rocks in both eBook
and paperback formats, I found I wanted to make some changes. The thought was rather daunting in case I
destroyed what I’d originally published, but because I can’t stop myself once I
have a bee in my bonnet, I went ahead, into the abyss! I should add that I was helped along by a
friend on Goodreads as well as KDPs support team.

I had published through Smashwords, Kindle Direct Publishing
KDP, and Createspace. I decided to start
with updating my Smashwords eBook first.

Smashwords

I found making changes to my Smashwords version the least
complicated.

1. Make and save changes to your file, and go into your Smashwords
Dashboard.

2. Under Operations, click on ‘Upload New Version’.

3. Under Select File, press the ‘Up-load button’.

4. Return to your Dashboard.

5. You will see that under the heading ‘Premium Status’ it
will now say ‘Pending’. This will remain
so for approximately 24 hours until your updated version has been approved.

Kindle Direct
Publishing KDP

Making changes to my KDP version was a little more
difficult, but only because I wasn’t aware that, depending on what kind of file
you originally loaded, the process for updating is different. In my case I had originally uploaded a MOBI
file.

MOBI file

1. Make the changes to your original file, and save it as
Web Page, Filtered (*Htm & Html).

2. Open MobiCreator.

3. Select “HTML Document” from Import from an Existing File

4. Press “Import”

5. Select “Build”

6. On the Build page click ‘Build”.

7. Once completed you should see the message “Build Finished”.

8. You will find the file in your ‘My Documents\My
Publications’ folder. It is supposed to
have a PRC (or prc) extension, although, mine said Kindle Content.

You can now upload this updated file to KDP as you did your
original.

HTML or Word docs

1. Sign in to KDP

2. To the right of your ‘Bookshelp’ screen click the Actions
drop down menu.

3. Choose ‘Edit Book Details’

4. The details of the book you published will come up.

5. Scroll down to Preview Book

6. You will see your book as it is in your KDP account and the ‘Download
HTML link should be at the top of the Preview screen. Click on this to download the content and
make your changes before resubmitting it.

*I was pleasantly surprised to find that the Kindle system
updates from the CLOUD so that anyone who has bought your eBook previous to the
update will automatically receive the updated edition.

As you know, the paperback format is a PDF file so you need
to make the changes to your original PDF file and then upload it onto
Createspace. It will automatically
replace your original. There will be a
down-time for this updated version of your book until you have approved the new
proof. In my case this only took a week.

9 October 2011

Social
media is a wonderful thing. It enables us
to interact with our readers, advertise our work, as well as keep in touch with
family and friends. But have you ever
felt that it is taking over?

The merry-go-round

You jump on
and don’t get off. It can change all the
plans you had for your day. That book
you are writing isn’t getting written. At
least that has been my experience, so I decided to do something about it.

Setting limits to get
the balance right

For me
there were two options. To spend my
mornings writing or my afternoons writing.
This wasn’t a difficult choice because I knew that if I turned the
internet on first thing in the morning, I would invariably get caught up, and
never get around to my afternoon’s writing.

This is what I came up
with.

Resist the
urge to connect to the internet and spend the morning writing.

Depending
on other commitments, blog writing, postings and maintenance of the site, in
the early afternoon.

6 October 2011

I’m lucky I
guess. I do have my own study, albeit
very small. It houses three bookcases, a
filing cabinet, a large desk, two printers, my chair, my cat Fergus, and
me. It’s saving grace is a floor to
ceiling window enabling a good deal of natural light and, for me, alleviating
possible claustrophobia. For Fergus, it
means many happy hours of feline growling at the birds in the bird bath outside.

Of course,
you don’t need a study because you can write anywhere. I guess that’s the beauty of it. All you need is a pen, some paper and somewhere
to sit. I’ve written on trains, planes, airport
gate lounges, the park, the hairdressers, the dentist’s waiting room (ugh), my
back patio, the dining room table, the couch in the living room.
One of my favourite places is the coffee
shop at my local aquatic centre. With
two 50 metre swimming pools, it tends to be a noisy place, but I can’t say that
I notice once I start writing. I wrote
much of ‘The Celtic Dagger’ and ‘Murder At The Rocks’, at this coffee shop.

So why am I
telling you all this? Because, as I
said before, you don’t need a special place to write.
You can write anywhere.

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About Me

Mystery writer and author of The Celtic Dagger, Murder At The Rocks,Once Upon A Lie, Lane's End, Deadly Investment, Poisoned Palette and The Fourth String, all part of the Fitzjohn Mystery Series.I live in Australia, am an avid reader, love the theatre, travelling, photography and delving into my family's genealogy.